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Gass. 



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BookJ^^^VV:^^ 






M^CLELL AN:" 

WHO HE IS 



AND 



WHAT HE HAS DONE,'^ 



AND 



LITTLE MAC 

'' Jfrom §airs §Mf to l^ifelam/' 

BOTH IN ONE. 



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"M'CLELL AX:" 

WHO HE IS 

AXD 

TVHAT HE HA-; DOXE,'* 

LITTLE 3L1C: 
"from lialfs %\\\\\ to ^utidaiir/ 

BOTH I y <:• y E . 



REVISED BY XECE ^XrXH:OK^ 



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121 y^ss^r Stszzt. 



MCCLELLAN INSIDE AND OUT. 



" Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." 

' Unto my God three times I daily bow ; 
But, little coxcomb knight, pray what are thou V 



The human mind is unfortunately so constructed that it may temporarily 
become the prey of any passion. There is no falsehood so startling, no the- 
ory so repugnant, no imposition so extreme, that it may not find shallow 
waters in the mind for its reception, and retentive harbors of belief. In 
turn, men have worshipped at the shrine of the toad, the fox, the serpent, the 
bull, and even the dripping tiger. In turn, again, there have been idolaters 
who have abased themselves before hideous shapes of wood, who have 
adored the elements, who have made sacrifices to the sun and stars ; and 
there have been, also, even those who, disdaining the celestial competition, 
have turned their backs upon the entire Pantheon, and founded a worship to 
" The Unknown God." History has exhibited itself in the same way in re- 
gard to rulers ; and it frequently renews its lessons of the transient fame of 
the unworthy by dropping them from the end of the pipe-stem, where they 
had some time pranced, to the gross level of unrelieved contempt. Merit 
alone can stand the test of time ; and charlatans and humbugs, though toler- 
ated for a season, are invariably detected by the people, and driven off the 
public grounds. 

There are many curious features in this philosophy of popularity ; but 
none more singular than the fact, that nearly all sudden reputations will 
prove to have been built upon an inverse ratio of merit ; while substantial 
characters ever wear the continuous inspection-marks of years. There is 
something, however, so delightful in delusion, and admiration makes so light 
a draft upon the thought, that most persons take to it with a powerful rel- 
ish, and once a hurrah is afoot, the inclination to join in takes like an epi- 
demic. Man is an imitative animal ; a yawn will go round an audience 
through a mere sympathy of the jaws, and when we have beheld courts and 
juries perverted from their judgments by the very magnetism of a surround- 
ing sentiment, and seen law-loving communities trample the statutes under 
foot, — when, stranger still, we have seen whole nations take a baboon, or a 
reptile, for their deity, or glorify some monarch for a conqueror who dared 
not look upon a sword, it is not so surprising that the present generation 
aiiould be willing to swallow^a hero who might have been cut out of a turnip, 
and who owes his whole character to the nature of his uniform. 



4 

One of these singular infatuations is prevailing now. A portion of our 
population, irritated by defeat, disturbed in its ideas, and bewildered by a 
crisis which it cannot comprehend, fastened its hopes, in an unlucky mo- 
ment, upon a boyish leader, upon the mere warrant of his own pretensions^ 
The careless observer, while glancing at McClellan, might permit himself, 
through a love of country, to rejoice at the weaknesses of character which 
seem guarantees against a dangerous ambition ; but in these defects, and in 
that want of promptitude and courage which result in imbecility, lie the con- 
centration of all danger. The crafty and unprincipled, may easily possess ai 
weak man ; and once he has lent himself to oblique counsels, the very best 
qualities that he possesses — those qualities that express faithfulness to friend- 
ship, and loyalty to personal alliances — are made the auxiliaries of the dark- 
est schemes. 

The field for our analysis is clear. There were no special obstructions in 
McClellan's path to glory. Everybody contributed their aid to make him a 
great man. The President lifted him to the most dazzling authority in the 
nation ; the imiversal voice accorded him the qualities of Csesar ; a lavish 
country placed incomparable and astounding legions in his hands, and the 
whole world looked on, to see this child of genius launch his quintupled thun- 
ders upon his meagre and cowering game. Now let us see how all this came 
about, and what came of it. 

George B. McClellan was born in the free State of Pennsylvania, and after 
receiving an education at West Point, embarked upon the world with a sec- 
ond-lieutenancy in the United States Army. After passing through the 
Mexican war, simply as an engineer, and without exhibiting for his brevet 
any soldierly souvenirs of battle, he selected for his residence the ex- 
treme South, and soon became conspicuously known as a Northern man, 
with Southern proclivities and principles. While living in Louisiana he was 
noted for bis intimate companionship with Pierre Toutant Beauregard, and' 
when that little Creole ran as a candidate for the mayoralty of New Orleans, 
he built an earthwork and temporary barricade within the city, to resist a 
threatened assault by his opponents, and placed his bosom friend, George 
B., in charge of the redoubt. 

Send-offs in life are the texts of future history. We soon find McClellan 
deeply identified with Southern fillibustering schemes, and trace him, in nat- 
ural course, to a prominent command in the league of the Lone Star. The 
objects of that association notoriously were the conquest of Cuba and its 
annexation to the South, in the interests of slavery ; and it is plain that 
McClellan, from his intimate intercourse Avith the leaders of the movement, 
was thoroughly familiar with all the aims of the conspiracy. 

General Quitman, of Mississippi, was the chosen generalissimo of the 
movement. The five officers nex* in rank to that leader were Albert Sid- 
ney Johnson, Gustavus W. Smith, Mansfield Lovell, Q. K. Duncan, and 
George B. McClellan. The terms on which these West Point gentlemen 
were engaged were ten thousand dollars cash to each, and Cuban contingen- 
cies, which took the promissory shape of future acres and vast hordes of ne- 
groes. But for the fear of offending the sensibilities of McClellan's peace 
democratic friends, we would say, that all of the above gentlemen but him 
have since turned traitors, and have openly embraced the rebel cause. 

Smith, Lovell, Johnson, and Duncan received their money, and resigned 
from the United States Army, as a natural preliminary to their new engage- 
ment. McClellan (whether he got his ten thousand dollar fee or not) also 



^sent in his resignation ; but, luckily for him, Governor Marcv, who was then 
Secretary of State, seized the Lone Star vessels at Mobile, and " ended up " 
the illicit expedition. The question of Lieutenant McClellan's resignation, 
•therefore, which had been lying in abeyance for some days, was soon after- 
ward withdrawn. But this facility of restoration had a secret. McClellan 
•was, and long-had been, a pet of Jeffei*son Davis, then Secretary of War, 
and that distinguished patriot saved him his commission. Indeed, he owed 
his little Northern protege no less ; for it was he (Davis) who had 
pushed him (McClellan) so far into the unlucky Lone Star affair, by send- 
ing him, at the expense of the L'uited States, on a preliminary mission 
'Of secret military observation to the Island, which was to be stolen in the 
interest of the Southern States. 

The failure of the Lone Star expedition left our young hero without any 
■definite prospects, but his good fortune kept Jeiferson Davis at the head of 
the War Department, and that excellent man, wishing to reward George still 
further for his devotion to the South, promoted him to be a captain of in- 
fantry, and then raised him to the dazzling station of Chief of the Commis- 
sion of Observation which represented the army of the United States before 
Sebastopol. True to these favors, and the tendencies which they created, 
he, after his return, united himself with the Breckenridge Democracy, the 
plot of which, on the part, at least, of its Southern engineers, was to either 
throw the election to the " House," or, by the return of Mr. Lincoln to the 
Presidency, to seize the opportunity for revolution. 

Now, these antecedents fui-nish us the cue to the problem which for a 
long time bewildered all loyal men in the extreme ; and we at last can under- 
stand the secret of that wondrous approbation with which the high appoint- 
ment of the young captain, as our Commander-in-Chief, was received by 
Southern generals and Dixie journals. The veil was lifted, too, from what 
had puzzled us the most, and that was, the miraculous unanimity with which 
every man of secession principles and doubtful loyalty among us agreed 
upon McClellan's transcendant talents as a chieftain. Loyal citizens would 
occasionally differ on his merits ; but if a man ever so lightly tinged with 
•*' Southern Rights " would come in hearing, the peace patriot would be sure 
to fly into a rage, look threateningly at the critic, as if he more than sus- 
pected him to be an Abolitionist, and swear that everybody was in a con- 
spiracy to ruin poor Little Mac ! It is true that hundreds of loyal, well- 
meaning men honestly did the same thing ; but while there were some 
among them who did not, the secessionists adored and lauded him without 
exception. Throughout the South the same phenomenon was visible, and 
we would continually hear the Confederate journals saying that the Yan- 
kees had but one great general, aud_the Abolitionists were trying to ruin 
him ! 

The distinguished object of such singular laudation could hardly be in- 
sensible to its effects. Human nature is governed by a few simple laws. 
We love those who love us, and it is repugnant to all good-feeling to injure 
and despitefuUy use those who speak well of us. By the very excellence of 
his nature, therefore, McClellan was emasculated of a great portion of that 
vigor and devil which is the first requirement of a fighting general, and 
he must have painfully felt, in his moments of self-examination, that it was 
his misfortune to be so universally appreciated. There was one course, 
however, that was still open to him, and which would obviate the stern 
necessity of shooting off " Our Southern Brethren's " heads, and arms, and 



6 

legs., A course, too, wliicl>, in the end, might be acquiesced in by Jeff, 
Davis himself, and give no unappeasable offense, even to Beauregard, or his 
confreres of the Lone Star Expedition. 

This was a great countiT ; it had great institutions and great oceans on 
either side of it. The American eagle ought to flap his wings over the en- 
tire continent, for the benefit of millious yet unborn. It was a shame for 
brothers to be fighting in this way about trifling points of difference, and 
the thing must be "fixed up." He (McClellan) was just the man to do it. 
In the South, he was Hannibal ; in the North, Cccsar and Napoleon to- 
gether ; and he might, therefore, under the scope of his great place, so 
manage his campaign as to drive the enemy into a convention, instead of 
into battle a Voutrance. He was backed by the resources of a great country ; 
he felt that he could demonstrate his superiority to his Confederate rivals as 
a soldier, to the same extent he had outstripped them as a student in the 
Academy ; and, when at last, by bloodless strategy he should have them 
cornered, he would signify to them that they had better lay down their 
arms, be good and loyal citizens again, and he would arrange matters so 
that everything " would be lovely," and they would have all their " rights." 

We do not positively assume this theory in his favor, but it is not en- 
tirely inconsistent Avith the tame nature of his loyalty ; and, to say the truth, 
it is the best we have. And, if perchance we are correct, we can almost 
imagine the broad and humane expression which must have spread over hi& 
benevolent countenance as this superb idea irradiated and relieved the pre- 
viously agitated depths of his philosophic mind. In the dim vista of the fu- 
ture he might behold himself toga'd on a pedestal, crowned with the olive as 
well as with the laurel, and continually alluded to by poetic orators as the 
second " Father of his Country." 

We find much to harmonize with this idea His debut was made with the 
announcement that we would carry on the war with as little loss of life as 
possible, and we have seen that, though the enemy, in vastly inferior num- 
bers, kept thrusting the rebel flag under his nose at Fairfax Court-House ; 
nay, did the same at M union's Hill for several months, he would not give 
our ''Southern brethren" battle. They even blockaded the Potomac on 
him ; nay, with one-third of his numbers, they reduced him to a state of 
siege, and made daring raids upon his lines from day to day; but the hour 
had not come to strike the crushing blow (perhaps to needlessly exasperate 
the feelings of both sides), and he bore the taunts and-humihations of his 
position with wondrous fortitude. What probably was the most embarrass- 
ing part of his position was the restless chafing of the two hundred thousand 
bayonets at his back for an advance; and the only consolation. that could 
possibly have supported him in his trying situation was the consciousness 
that his motives were- correct, and that his plan would bring the country out 
all right in the end. 

He was rather unlucky, though, for the war was terribly exasperated in 
the West by Grant, Foote, Pope, Mitchell, Wallace, Rosecrans, and Curtis, 
and in the South-west by that rare old Governor, Ben. Butler, and by Fan agut, 
and Porter. In the South-east the same was done by Burnside, Sherman, 
and Dupont. The East, where we had the most troops and the greatest gen- 
eral., was the only place where nothing was done at all. 

It was something to our Young Napoleon, nevertheless, that the People 
kept gazing upon him in a sort of admiring trance, and, though they could 
not by any means penetrate his plans^ they hurrahed for his amazing silence 



and inaction, and offered to " bet their lives " (as fifty thousand did, and los 
them) that Little Mac wasn't keeping so still for nothing, and that, by-and- 
by, he would come out all right." 

At leno-th, Little Mac did move ; and, on his own judgment, he chose the 
route to Richmond by the way of the Peninsula. It was not a very direct 
road for it obliged him to embark and debark a vast army, and make a long 
trip by sea — a process that is always somewhat demoralizing to troops, and 
always very filthy. The cost of the job was worth, in cash, probably some 
sixty millions. 

The choice of route was therefore thought to be a little singular, and some 
querulous civilians hkewise thought it strange, that, having so long refused 
the opportunity to strike the enemy at Manassas, with quadrupled numbers 
in his favor, he should take a roundabout road, for so great a distance, to 
receive odds against himself. This, however, was regarded as impertinent, 
and the Young Napoleon went his way, backed by the hopes and confiderrce 
of the whole nation. He took one hundred and twenty thousand men with 
him, which was all he asked for that time. He requested more, and the 
Government forwarded him the divisions of Franklin and McCall, and oth3rs, 
until he had received one hundred and fifty thousand men, and there was but 
nineteen thousand and twenty-two left behind for the defense of Washing- 
ton. The Administration, which has been so roundly villified for not having 
sent him more, could not spare another soldier, for the divisions of McDowell 
and Banks were the necessary stays against the enemy at Fredericksburg 
and Warrenton, and there was no surplus in commission. The Young Na- 
poleon might, however, have had them all, had he remained at Washington, 
and moved with them upon Richmond from that point ; for he would thus 
have been enabled to cover the capital and the valley of the Shenandoah at 
the same time, and to have kept the odds, too, on his own side. 

But he preferred a more profound and complicat3d policy, and the result 
of it was, that the enemy caught him right in the midst of his brilliant stra- 
tegy, and drove him pell-mell out of it, so that he burned his tents and stores, 
and fled for a week, leaving his guns in large number9,f;and his wounded and 
his dead behind him. Instead of driving the enemy to the wall, they ran him 
into t^e mud, and brought him to a terrible standstill for months. The main 
results, therefore, of his brilliant strategy were, that he cost the coun- 
try about five hundred millions of dollars, prolonged the war at least two 
year, reduced his army practically to seventy thousand men, and in add*> 
tion to paralyzing it for months, as he once before paralyzed the gran.: 
Army of the Potomac, he actually water-logged the navy also, for he " tie*,. 
up " several hundred vessels (transports and men-of-war) in the simple dutv 
ol feeding and protecting him The minor residts of his genius were the 
dejection of the country, a deluge of shinplasters, the sneers of Europe, 
the hisses of Oxford, the invigoration of the rebel cause in Parliament, 
and the confident side-whisper of old Palmerston to his rampant Commons 
that a few months longer would bring a still better chance for interven- 
tion. Well might the French Princes and Mr. A.stor laave him in disgust, 
and well might his political orators notify the people that his acts are 
sacred from analysis, and that he is a great general, for they know it. 

Now, we have arrived just at the point of this article where we wish to 
state that we believe he is neither a great general nor a gx-eat man; and to 
further express our conviction that he is entirely unfitted, by reason of men- 



8 

tkS laferiority, for any broader military task than the management of a 

Tia«r« are many Avays of testin<r intellectual capacity, and we know of no 
>iA3ts« easier for this purpose, than McClellan's. He is a military adept, and he 
^stanot plan ; a soldier, and he cannot fight ; a scholar, and he cannot write. 
11aei« is no one of his dispatches that will bear the analysis of a schoolboy; 
^«t one of his bulletins which is not bloated with bombast ; not one of his 
.-statements that is not vague, foggy, or "purely unintelligible." 

He first sprang into the public ring at Rich Mountain like an acrobat or 
nS. rope-dancer. The battle of that name was really performed t)y Rpsecrans ; 
bffit^ though a simple operation, it was well-conceived, and, notwithstanding 
IfcGkillan was not present, it, by the laws of practice, accrues to his credit, 
its the senior officer.* Well do we bear in mind the tenor of the telegram by 
-wMch he announced this victory to the world ; and we here put it as a point 
-^f Inference, whether a man, who, after years of laborious scholarship, can be 
■^jsO grossly inexact in the deliberate use of words, can reasonably be expected 
to 'exhibit any mental method in planning a campaign ; or to develop 
accuracy, while arranging battalions amid the perturbations and the heat of 
iclion? 

*'The success of today," says our Napoleon, "is all that I could desire. 
We captured six brass cannons, of which one is rifled, all the enemy's camp 
-equipage and transportation, even to his cups. The number of tents will, 
probably, reach two hundred, and more than sixty wagons. T7ieh' killed and 
wounded will amount to fully one hundred and fifty, with one hundred 
prisoaers." 

* * * " 7heh' retreat is complete. * * j niay say we have driven 
<tmt some ten thousand men." * * * 

Tiien, after some further grandiloquent display, he closes with the following 
Sifcerary cross, between the styles of Mr. Merrymau and Uriah Heap : 

**I hope the General-in-Chief will approve of my operations." 

■"Does the razor hurt you, sir?" says the barber, when conscious of his 
Mglifcest touch. "A little applause, if you please, ladies and gentlemen!" 
imploringly looks Mr. Merriman, as he crosses his legs and throws out his 
fingers from his lips, after a clever summersault. There is but one step be- 
tween the sublime and the ridiculous ; so the public, not looking for a 
mountebank, and being struck with this strange style, picked Little Mac up 
for a Napoleon. 

Then came the proposition for a bloodless war — imagine the old Napoleon 
i.omg that! Next came the cruel exoneration of General Stone, and the 
^-aaton defamation of the heroic Baker, who was immolated to their united 
Munders at Ball's Bluff; next Napoleon's ^ow-toned reflection upon the mis- 
fortunes of McDowell (who would have harvested his victory but for 
the creature Patterson), by pompously proclaiming "No more retreats; no 
more defeats; no more Bull-Run affairs." Then followed his repeatedly 
pretended preparations for a battle, and his prescient declaration that the 
^osely-impending conflict would be " short, sharp, and bitter," though time 
has revealed that, while saying so, he did not mean to fight at all. During 
all this while, he went riding up and down the lines, assuring "the boys" 
that if they would " stick by him, he would stick by them," and occasionally 

* By the same rule, however, he is fully responsible for the dreadful blunders and butch- 
,-eay of Ball's Bluff', for that, the first of his operations as Commander-in-Chief, was planned 
.isai. ordered by himself. 



9 

telling them, in the imperial vein, to have no fear, for he would expose his 
sacred person, with them, in the dangers of the field. 

We next find young Napoleon .it Yorktown, before the head of an army, 
with which Old Napoleon would have marched all over Secessia, and back 
again, in six months ; but instead of taking the meagre city by assault, and 
giving the North and East an opportunity to square accounts of glory with 
the West, his bloodless strategy was again put in play, and he distributed the 
shovel instead of drawing forth the sword. At length the Confederates, 
having retained him four full weeks to secure the arrival of their reinforce- 
ments fi'om the South, made, at their leisure, a masterly retreat, the details of 
which lasted through four decorous days. Nay, a single spontaneous rebel, 
with a solitary gun, which he fired on his ov.^n hook ^11 night, after the Con- 
federates were gone, stayed the progress of our army for several hours more. 
Now, mark what our Napoleon did. He did not throw up redoubts before 
that man, — though under his Crimean affliction of mud upon the brain, he 
must have been sorely tempted, to such course, — but, having ascertained that 
the enemy had indeed marched out, he immediately sent off a handful of 
dispatches, stating in set terms, that he had won a hrilliant victory ! Yes, 
victoii'y was the word ! Nay, not satisfied with this, and though the enemy 
had burned all their refuse, and lost not a single wagon, the little Mars, on 
the following morning, sent off another flood of telegrams, announcing that 
our victory ^ at Yorktown, had proved to be even more brilliayii than he had 
at first supposed. This gross misuse of language would seem to indicate 
either a conscious want of fighting prestige, (did we say of courage?) or an 
ignorance of the true weight of words ; but if neither this nor that, then he 
must have intended to foist a false idea on the pubUc. But the climax of this 
grand absurdity was yet to come, and it did come, in the shape of another 
telegram, so miserable in its character, so measly with humility, that our 
cheek still tingles at our share of the disgrace, sustained through it, by 
general human nature : 

"May I be permitted to allow my troops to inscribe Yorktown on^their 
banners, as other generals have done?" " 

This is so pitiable, and, for a commander-in-chief, so deplorably mean- 
spirited, that we do not care to dwell upon the picture. It could hardly look 
worse if he had sent the same application to Jeff. Davis, on the subject of the 
Chickahominy ! But the Confederate President had undoubtedly " approved 
of his operations" in that quarter. 

Next came the affair at Williamsburgh, where the rear-guard of the enemy, 
finding us pressing after them too closely, turned grandly back, and gave us 
bitter battle. The fight lasted for some seven hours ; General McCIellan, 
according to his custom, arrived upon the field after the strife was over, and, 
having reined up near Hancock's brigade, was made cognizant of their 
brilliant closing charge. Ignoring, thereupon, all other features of the day, 
he sent ofi" a dispatch in which he gave credit to that brigade alone. The 
credit was, doubtless, well-deserved, but it had been earned by an incidental 
operation, lasting not over forty minutes, while the divisions of Hooker, and 
Keese and Kearney, and the Excelsior Brigade of Sickles, had been breath- 
ing the red flame of battle for six or seven hours. The other reports, 
however, exhibited the gross injustice of this single compliment, and, at the 
end of several days, we find Napoleon reluctantly putting forth another 
bulletin, in which he says, in substance, that had he known, when writing his 
first dispatch, of the gallant services performed by such and such divisions 



10 . . 

and brigades, he would have done them justice at the time ; and in degree as 
he should learn who else behaved with spirit, Ivp would award them equal 
praisel Was ever any confession, that was extorted under threatened con- 
sequences, more abject and contemptible than this ! 

But there is a crowning absurdity and contradiction yet to come, as in the 
case of tlie Yorktown telegram ; only we regret to say, that the climax, in 
this case, is more serious than in the other, and hardly reconcilable with 
ordinary common sense. Two or three days after this latent recognition of a 
brave army's toils and sacrifices, General McClellan reviewed Hancock's brig- 
ade, and having expressed a few words of warm eulogium, he is reported to 
have said, "You savecf our army from disgrace!" Was ever statement like 
this heard before from a commander, about his army? Who was it that, but 
for this small squad, would have betrayed us to disgrace? Was it the corpa 
iVarmee of the grim old Heintzelman ? Was it Hooker's or Kearney's, or 
Sickles' gallant men ? Or, was it any, or all of the regiments whose proAvess 
he had recognized but two or three days before? We do not wish to press 
the matter, and we hope it is not true. If it be not, it should bo denied, for 
it is too heavy a weight for even Ajax to carry with decorum down the aisles 
of history.* 

The next dispatch of our hero relates to the battle of Fair Oaks, where 
Casey's skeleton division was precariously posted on the far side of the river, 
and so far in front as to invite the assault of some forty thousand men. This 
exposed handful of inexnerienced troops, lately recruited from Pennsylvania 
and New York, of course, recoiled, as did the veterans at Shiloh, under the 
stunning blow ; nevei-theless, and though hundreds of them strewed the field, 
they rallied, and bravely withstood the pressure of the superincumbent foe 
for full three hours, at the astounding cost, in killed and wounded, of one- 
third of their entire number. The Commander-in-Chief, according to the 
reports, did not arrive upon the field until the fight was fairly over. Then 
gathering the details, probably from fugitives, he dashed off a dispatch, 
which he ostentatiously dated "From the Field of Battle!" in which he vir- 
tually denounced the whole division of the old veteran as cowards. Lo, in 
about ten days afterward, he vtas obliged to swallow one-half this dispatch, 
as he did that of Williamsburg, and to acknowledge that he, the Commander- 
in-Chief, who dated his dispatch so blushingly " Irom the field of battle,'' had 
been 7/1 idn formed about the matter. The other half, however, still rankles 
in the hearts of many a man and woman in the Empire and tlie Quaker 
States, whose sons and kinsmen drenched that cruel field in expiation of the 
fatal strategy of Young Napoleon. The shabby recompense was perforce 
accepted, but not a citizen of cither State, whose stranded youth have been 
thus fearfully defamed in death, can lightly pass it from the mind. 

But he was not yet done with despatches, even in relation to this battle ; 
for in the face of the fact that the enemy had driven him from his camp, 
with the loss of many guns, and that they had slept upon the very battle- 
ground, our Young Napoleon announced from Ins waist-deep location in the 
marsh, that he had gained a decided advantage over them, and secured a 
better position than before. Subsequent events have shov»n, however, that 
if the position to which he was thus ingloriously pushed was better, the 
former must have been hell itself. Tliis is certainly a fair conclusion, for in 
a fev7 days afterward he was driven from the last, at a cost of fifteen thou- 

*It was true. 



11 

sand men aud about thirty camion ; while nothing but the strange valor of 
our soldiers, aud the talent of their able marshals, combining with the for- 
tunate drunkenness of certain Confederate generals, saved our whole force 
from absolute destruction. The latter series of actions which effected this 
result opened at three o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth of June, 
but McClellan did not make his appearance on the field until some four or 
live hours afterwards. The flight thus opened lasted seven days, but though 
we have read all the printed letters within our reach about the matter, we 
fail to find more than one mention of Napoleon, during the prolonged meUe, 
and that mention spoke of him and his staff as riding briskly to the rear, 
while whole columns were sweeping the other way to the attack. A strange 
epilogue to the " stick by me, aud I'll stick by you" orations ! 

Yes, at the close of affairs we get another glimpse of him, but then he had 
made port, and was high up in the rigging of the Galena, with a spy-glass in 
his hand, surveying the turmoil on the shore. He may have been in the cen- 
tre of every hot encounter, dealing death upon the rebels with his own good 
sword, but we have failed to hear of it ; and it has not been our good for- 
tune to find a single tribute, from any mercurial reporter, describing the 
modern Napoleon's coolness when some ball fell near him, or noticing the 
pleasing smile which overspread his face, when the dirt thrown up by some 
adjacent shell consecrated him with the real baptism of battle. These re- 
ports are so usual in campaigns, that it is singular they should be omitted in 
this case, and the conclusion, therefore, is, either that the reporters were ex- 
ceedingly remiss, or that no such scenes of signal hardihood occurred.* 

The first dispatch which our young Commander wrote in relation to this 
week of battles, was, as the London Times has said, about his plans, "purely 
unintelligible." By dint of study, however, and acute translation, we gather 
from it the general idea that he has outmanaged the enemy, though by 
these repeated successes it seems that he has been terribly reduced, and 
forced again to relinquish the musket for the spade, and find shelter between 
his gun-boats and redoubts. 

The dispatch which announced this fiasco to the world, again claimed an 
improvement of position, and with the deliberate intention of imposing on 
the country. Napoleon announced that he had lost but one siege gun. The 
clagicers took this as a cue for their hosannahs, and encouraged by this un- 
expected demonstration, our hero sent off a semi-oflicial letter, stating that 
the enemy had retreated. It was probably true that but one " siege" gun 
had been lost, but we were entitled to know how many guns of other calibre 
and fashion were lost with it. It was not true, in any point of view, how- 
ever, that the enemy had retreated, for McClellan knew perfectly well that 
they, having driven him to a cowering shelter under protection of his men- 
of-war, had merely fallen back to a position consistent with their base of op- 
erations. 

We turn now to another feature of this tragedy. Lee, finding McClellan 
thoroughly disposed of, and anchored hopelessly amid the mud at Turkey 
Bend, directed his army against Washington, by the northern route. Under 
timely information of this movement, the Government concentrated those of its 
forces which had been retained on the south of the Potomac, and placed them 

*The testimony taken before the Committee on the Conduct of the War has developed the 
fact that McClellan, during these seven days of battle, would always, after pcstirg the 
troops, ride to the rear to select a position for the»next day's retreat In plain terms, he ran 
away from every fignt, and left his corps commanders to conduct the action. 



12 

under the command of General Pope, an energetic commander who had been 
serving in the West. The danger to the capital was imminent ; so General 
Halleck, acquainting McClellan with its urgency, directed him to abandon 
his useless position on the James, and hurry to the relief of the Army of 
Virginia, which was then making a diversion against Lee, in order that he 
(McClellan) might escape. Instead, however, of obeying the instincts of a sol- 
dier, McClellan paltered with the order, and in an impertinent dispatch, asked 
for more troops to resume his operations against Richmond. Ten precious days 
were thus consumed, until finally positive instructions required him to re-em- 
bark, and bring back his regiments to Alexandria. Still, after that, seven 
more days were dawdled out, and it was not till Lee had struck Pope with 
the weight of his entire force, that the dilatory army of McClellan had re- 
turned. It landed at Alexandria on the 2'lth of August, 1862. Obeying 
the impulses of their profession. Hooker, and Kearney, and Stevens, gather- 
ing their divisions, pushed forward to the front, and found four days of bat- 
tle, while Franklin and Porter, the pet generals of McClellan, remained with 
him, idle and sullen, on the very spot where they had debarked. The earth 
throbbed with the sound of the contending cannon, yet while the destinies 
of his country were thus trembling in the balance, and I^earney and Stevens 
went down in their heroic efforts at Chantilly, McClellan. sat on a smooth 
hill-side, quietly smoking his segar, predicting Pope's defeat while refusing 
him any reinforcements. At length, the President, on his own responsibil- 
ity, ordered Franklin forward, but the contumacious Caesar stopped him on 
the road. Finally, Pope begged a little forage for his starving cavalry, but 
Mac denied this also, and, in keeping with this act, Fitz-John Porter at the 
same moment turned from the front, and forced the Western general, who 
was thus hopelessly betrayed, to fall precipitately back. All the country 
understood the scheme, and expected to see McClellan and his satellites 
made subjects for a corporal's guard. They did not bargain, however, for 
the influences of the other parties to the compact, and, consequently, were 
perfectly amazed to behold Little Mac not only emerge from his complica- 
tion, but actually sail off again in full command, with the traitor Fitz-John 
Porter, and all his other satraps smiling in his train, 

Lee, being thus left master of the field, turned north, with the audacious 
purpose of invading Maryland, while the shattered remnants of Pope's 
army, falling back within McClellan's lines, constituted the latter, through 
his mere ranking privilege, again the commander of the whole.' It was then 
that the Government, disturbed by the reports that the corps commanders 
would serve cordially under no other generalissimo bat McClellan, yielded to 
the apparent necessity of the hour, and recommissioned him with the task 
of stemming the invasion. 

He went apparently in pursuit of Lee, but instead of cutting off his re- 
treat by a rapid flank march to Harper's Ferry, he lounged leisurely after 
him, over good roads, at the rate of five miles a day, with a view of getting 
in his front and shooing him harmlessly out of the State. Hooker, under 
similar circumstances, followed Lee for three days, at the rate of 20 miles a 
day, and placed himself in front of Washington, in time to save it. Lee re- 
mained in Maryland for full nine days, and then, reeling with plunder, left at his 
leisure, sending Jackson in advance to conquer Harper's Ferry, as a bonne 
bouche, and to cover his retreat. FrankUn was within seven miles of this ill- 
fated post, with a whole division, ^nd listened tamely to its bombardment 
for several hours. Its unfortunate commander had been beggmg earnestly 



13 

for reinforcements for two days, the President had ordered McClellan to re 
lieve it, and he reported he had transmitted orders to FrankUn to that ef- 
fect. But reinforcements were ignored in the "conservative" tactics of our 
strategic generals, and, with this so-called " order" in his pocket, Franklin 
remained stock-still, and permitted the important post to fall. Lee, then, 
elated by his fortune, and disdaining the man with whom he had to deal, 
seems to have been seized with the idea of trying to see whether McClellan 
could be made to fight, under any circumstances whatever ; so, with but 
fifty-five thousand effective men, he had the hardihood to take position, with 
a river in his rear, against a force posted on a rising ground, and numbering, 
at the least, one hundred thousand men. 

The history of the action is well-known. Hooker opened it, and, while 
driving the enemy in splendid style, went down with a shot in the foot. It 
was well for him that he did. He would soon have needed reinforcements, 
and, not getting them, Avould probably have follen with a ball in his head. 
That had been the fate of Baker, at Ball's Bluff; of Kearney and Stevens,_at 
Chantilly ; and the early hour at which Hooker got his wound warded him 
from the fate of those examples, and doubtless saved him to the country. 

The battle went on feebly, lingering all that day witliout one grand attack ; 
and presently, when night approached, Burnside required reinforcements. 
The reporter "of the Tribune describes his aide arriving at headquarters with 
a request for help. McClellan turned an inquiring look towards Fitz 
Porter, his familiar, who stood at his elbow with thirty thousand unused 
men. That practised soldier, says the unsuspicious chronicler, gravely and 
slowly shook his head, whereupon McClellan replied to the imploring officer 
— "Tell General Burnside he must hold his position until dark; that this is 
the battle of the war !" The young reporter doubtless took the secret cor- 
respondence, which passed between the eyes of the two chief actors of this 
scene, for military prescience and profundity. The intelHgent reader will 
now, however, translate this look in quite a different way. This battle was, 
to us, the most disastrous of the war. The enemy, by McClellan's ov/n ad- 
mission, slept upon a portion of the field, and yet he had the effrontery to 
proclaim it as a victory. On the following day, though we had thirty thou- 
sand fresh reserves, the rebels were allowed to bury their dead, and repose 
within our view, and the next night they moved leisurely off, without the 
loss of another man. To finish the climax, the Commander-in-Chief, as if in a 
spirit of half-malicious waggery, reminds us, on the third day, of the picture 
of Pickwick playfully chasing his hat, by the suggestive telegraphic line, 
" Fleasauton, with his cavalry, is in close pursuit of the enemy." 

It was a fit epilogue to the disgraceful scenes of Centreville, and a worthy 
instance, in the line of precedents, to warrant the subsequent tactics of 
Franklin before Fredericksburg. Thus we find that McClellan, who began 
by disobeying orders under Scott, who endeavored to exchange the Capitol of 
Washington for Richmond when in the Peninsula, who abandoned Pope to the 
mercy of the foe at Centreville, who would not put the rebels to the sword 
at Antietam, and who flatly refused to obey the orders ol the President to 
follow them to Winchester, actually controlled the destiny of the army until 
ignominiously expelled from its command in the first week in November. 
He did not go into exile, however, undefended, or without angry protests in 
his favor. The services he had rendered to the hostile cause were too signal 
for him to be left without a party ; and, moreover, it was plam he was of just 
the right material to be made a rallying-point of opposition to the GoTern 



14 ♦ 

meut. A tory howl was therefore set up fur him at once ; the cry of '' per- 
secution" was put upon the wind, and, at the same time, with a bare-faced- 
ness which made everybody Laugh, it was claimed that he was a militar}' 
genius who excelled the^great Napoleon. 

It was supposed at first, by those who imagined he had courage, and who 
desired him to play the role of a dictator, that he would not obey the reliev- 
ing prder which required him to report at Trenton. But he very tamely 
packed his trunk, and taking an affectionate leave of /lis army, moodily 
turned his charger's head toward the Capital. It' was a tableau not exactly 
like that of the farewell of the first Napoleon at Fontainebleau, but still it is 
worthy of some American artist, and should not be lost to the cartoons of 
the Capitol. Its contrast with our hero's ostentatious entrance into Wash- 
ington a year before is well worthy of the historic canvas ; and though we 
have not a Vernet or a De la Roche to do the subjeot justice, it might at 
least be consigned to the patriotic Ackerman, who has a genius for such sub- 
jects, and a capacious paint-shop in Nassau street, near Ann. 

It may be considered rather fortunate, in some points of vie'w, that we 
have not the keen and terrific perceptive faculties of a Trumbull or an In- 
gres, to group around the retiring chieftain, as he slowly picked his way 
through the blinding snow-storm, wliich aptly accompanied the close of his 
career, the fleshless forms and eyeless sockets of the hundred thousand dead, 
whose reproachful moans mingled with the wind that drifted him from off" the 
field. That would furnish a painful recollection to the People, rack many a 
parent's bosom, and fill many a widow's eyes with tears ; while, on the other 
hand, the buoyant brush of Ackerman, charged with its usual cheerful lights, 
could represent him in the most glowing print-shop fashion, looking three 
ways with equal strength of feature, and severally labelled, Caesar — Marlbor- 
ough — McClellau. 

We have thus traced McClellan through the operations of this war. If 
there is one transaction creditable to him we have failed to find it ; so we leave 
him with the final comment, that he has proved himself, in every way, qual- 
ified to be the candidate of the white-feathered peace party who have nomin- 
ated him:; and quite worthy, also, of the chosen friendship of ex-general Fitz- 
John Porter, who stands stricken from the army rolls, for having betrayed 
his comrades and his country on the field of battle. Should we be sur- 
prised, therefore, that the rebel host behind the works of Petersburg, on 
hearing of his nomination at Chicago, made the air ring with their applause ? 

An Old-Lixe Democrat. 



ith 



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